


A Few Minutes (or, "Delicate")

by SusanaR



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Magic, Mentors, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 02:18:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3511580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all of Faramir's children, Glorfindel worries the most about Mithiriel.  Until he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Few Minutes (or, "Delicate")

"A few minutes." She pleaded, as she held her sore hands and lost the fight with her tears under the bright sun on the practice court. 

Glorfindel's heart ached for her, but he attacked again even so. Mithiriel was Aragorn's most delicate, least warrior-like grandchild, but she must learn, nonetheless. If everyone gave her a few minutes to recover, she'd never be ready for the day when someone wasn't her friend, and used those moments to kill her, or capture her, or truly hurt her. 

They'd been at this for an hour. To Mithiriel's credit, she did not try to come up with excuses to avoid her weapons and unarmed combat lessons. She tried doggedly, but she wasn't gifted at it, and she was built small, and she was easily distracted. That was why she was nursing sore hands from losing her staff for the fourteenth time. That was why she was overwhelmed with tears of not just pain, but also frustration and disappointment and self-disgust. 

At first Glorfindel thought that she would just stay still and expect him to stop, but then she scrambled backwards and to the side. He would tell her that she'd done well for that, but later. For now, he just followed, determined to knock her down again so that she learned that she could be hurt, and survive. 

Mithiriel's pain and fear struck him like a knife; and then something else struck him. Glorfindel came back to consciousness to find his body lying in the dust, his aching head cradled in Mithiriel's lap while her tears fell on his face. He heard her calling for her mother, and then felt Eowyn's cool hands and, a few minutes later, Aragorn's. 

Despite his bleary, confused protests, Glorfindel spent a mostly peaceful night as a patient in the House of Healing. He still didn't know what had happened. He'd been attacking Mithiriel, then he was down and out as thoroughly as if he'd been struck hard on the head with an axe butt. 

Trying to recall, Glorfindel realized that, in the moment before he fell, the expression in Mithiriel's eyes had turned from panic to panic-fueled resolution. He was belatedly pleased by that - the latter expression meant that she'd been about to at least try to do something to defend herself.

It was Faramir who was by his bed when he awoke, and Faramir whom he asked, "What in the name of all the Valar happened?" 

"For public consumption," Faramir said dryly, "You tripped and hit your head." 

"Fires of Mordor I did." Glorfindel refuted flatly. 

"In truth? You pushed Mithiriel; Mithiriel pushed back." 

Glorfindel just stared at him. Aragorn's peaceable, scholarly son. Who was also the son of Finduilas of Dol Amroth. Who had been Olorin's pupil. Who some had called a witch; an accusation that Faramir had never directly refuted. 

Faramir sighed. "And how do we manage to keep hiding this, Daerada Glorfindel?" He asked, in the tone of a terrified father, begging a beloved elder to help him protect his darling, fragile, daughter. His darling, delicate daughter, who was a witch. A witch who could knock out a balrog slayer, without even lifting a pale, delicate finger. 

"She fell asleep not long after we got you here." Faramir reported quietly, "And has not yet woken. She is not omnipotent. It is not an easy gift, nor one without cost, and she has very little control over it. Almost none." 

Glorfindel sat up on his bed, rubbing his head. The pale rays of late morning sunlight shone through the pale, fluttering curtains. This room was situated so that the mountain winds carried words up and away. 

"Mithiriel killed that bandit last year, when Jalila and the girls were kidnapped." Glorfindel deduced, "The one that Theli claimed he'd poisoned." 

Seeing Faramir's nod, he continued, "Anything else?" 

"I did not bleed as much as I should have, when Eldarion cut open my throat to keep me breathing. A child who fell while climbing a high tree in the park caught a thin branch which should have broken under his weight, and held onto it until Legolas could reach him. Mithiriel was present on both occasions, and fainted not long afterwards." 

"I thought she was just delicate." 

"So did we." 

Glorfindel got to his feet, disgusted at first to find that he needed to hold on to the bed rail to do so. Then he suddenly smiled, because by the Valar, Aragorn's grandchild whom he had worried about the most might not find herself dead the first time she came across an enemy stronger than she was. 

"Glorfindel?" Queried Faramir, clearly concerned and possibly ready to call for a healer. 

"This is a good thing, Faramir." Glorfindel said reassuringly, still smiling. "We can work with this." 

"It can't be practiced, Glorfindel." Faramir explained, nearly panicking, "There is a cost." 

"Anything can be practiced, Faramir. It is just a matter of figuring out how." 

It turned out that Faramir was more right than Glorfindel was, on that topic, but by refining theory in the absence of reliable practice, Mithiriel did gain greater control. Glorfindel made Faramir a promise to protect her, and her secret, and Glorfindel did so, over all the many centuries of their lives. He did so, until the end of the world, when Faramir could be beside Mithiriel again. Until the end of the world, when they all faced their enemies together for the last time, and joined Eru in singing a new world into existence. 

Because, after all, nothing ever really ends.

**Author's Note:**

> End note 1: 
> 
> Quote: 
> 
> “They will come back, come back again,  
> As long as the red earth rolls.  
> He never wasted a leaf or a tree.  
> Do you think he would squander souls?”  
> ― Rudyard Kipling
> 
> End note 2: 
> 
> I was a little reluctant about writing this, but the idea of Mithiriel having some sort of magic wouldn't leave me alone. In drafts of later stories that aren't close to finished, Mithiriel explains that she can, if she chooses, see the world as vibrating harp strings of possibilities, woven into vast tapestries. Strum a thread, and you can knock someone down. Pull a string, and you can stop a heart. Rip out a few strands from two different sections and weave them back into the wrong places, and you can have a sea slug where you once had a human assassin, and a human assassin on the bottom of the sea floor somewhere. But any of those actions has a cost to Mithiriel, and there is other cause-and-effect as well, so it isn't a deus ex machina - just a useful skill that can sometimes become crucially important.


End file.
